Lights Will Guide You Home
by TheMotherDragon
Summary: The reunion Damon and Elena deserve in season six. Complete with a rain kiss. This is a personal head canon, but I'd like to think it's a plausible scenario. Rated M because I curse instinctually and I'm certain Elena does too (at least in her head).


This head canon basically assaulted my brain after all of Julie's interviews for season six. It's been circling around and around and driving me mad, which told me it was something I needed to share. So this is my dream for the Delena reunion when Damon returns from the dead.

I listened to 'Fix You' by Coldplay on a loop while I wrote it. I suggest you do the same while reading it. If you want the full experience that is.

Cheers m'dears.

**Lights Will Guide You Home**

_Damon is back._

I keep saying the words over and over again in my head.

They're playing on a loop, circling around my brain, and cradling my heart in a hold so gentle I'm expecting it to simply fall into a peaceful slumber at any moment.

_Damon is back._

I wasn't sure at first. He'd been dead for six months, gone somewhere I could not follow.

I didn't think I'd ever see him again. Not even in death. I had no idea where he'd moved on to, but I'd spent every single day since he disappeared convinced it was a place beyond my reach.

And now he's here. Alive. With me.

_Damon is back. _

I still can't believe it. Even though there's no other explanation, I can't wrap my mind around his reappearance after so many months of separation.

But I'm so relieved to see him again, feel him again, hear him again after thinking he was gone forever that I don't care much how it came about, or if it's even real.

_Damon is back. _

He's assured me it is real. So has Bonnie. So has everyone actually.

Which means at least I'm not hallucinating. Or dead.

That only leaves a dream.

But I don't think I'm dreaming. Because the way he's making me feel is too powerful to be a creation of my subconscious mind.

_Damon is back._

He hasn't stopped touching me since I realized he was alive again.

Thank heaven for small mercies. I couldn't stomach being an inch further from him than I currently was.

But that's about all the space there is between us right now. An inch.

_Damon is back._

He's everywhere. He's been everywhere for hours, from the moment we barreled through the bedroom door - our bedroom door - and fell into bed.

Neither of us had been at the boarding house for ages but we didn't even stop to take anything in.

We were far too ravenous for that.

_Damon is back. _

We were still soaked from the storm that continued to rage outside, but that didn't stop us.

If anything the slickness of our skin and the thunder rattling the windows and the lightning igniting the sky only served to draw us closer together.

Because all we saw and heard and felt and tasted and breathed was each other.

And that was enough to convince me he was real.

_Damon is back. _

He'd shown up seemingly out of nowhere, whispering my name in that way of his, thumb caressing the skin above my eyebrow.

The force of that mysterious blast in the cemetery - which I now knew was him and Bonnie crashing through from the great beyond - had thrown me far into the woods and knocked me unconscious.

And I'd awoken to the glorious sight of his sky blue eyes roaming over my face to be sure I was okay.

I'd been certain my sanity had finally snapped.

"_Damon?" I asked in confusion as I started to sit up, unsure what to make of his presence. _

_Because he couldn't be here. _

"_Elena," he said in that tender tone reserved for only my ears, a smile fighting its way onto his lips as he realized I was coming to. "You okay?" His fingers migrated down my cheek to my jawline. _

_And I practically jumped out of my skin. It felt so real._

_Too real. _

_I froze in place, looking him over, wondering what the hell was going on. _

"_Am I dreaming? Hallucinating? It wouldn't be the first time." Except I'm usually able to tell when I'm dreaming or hallucinating and this didn't feel like either one. _

"_Dreams and hallucinations? You'll have to tell me about those." His voice was teasing, his eyebrows doing their dance and sending a flurry of butterflies through my stomach._

_God I hadn't felt that in months. I'd missed it. _

_But that had never happened in my dreams or hallucinations. Only the real Damon could make my nerves flutter so pleasantly. _

_So if this was the real Damon and not a figment of my imagination then that had to mean I was with him somehow. And since he couldn't come back from the dead there was only one other explanation. _

"_Oh no. Did I die? Did that explosion kill me? Is this, like, the afterlife? Beyond the Other Side?" I was torn between absolute horror that I might have just left my brother without any family and absolute elation that I was with Damon again, even if we were both dead. _

_It's not like it was the first time we'd ever been dead together. _

"_Wow, what happened to that infuriatingly optimistic girl I knew six months ago? I'm supposed to be the fatalist here. You're stealing my thunder baby." The loving sarcasm in his tone and his face was out of control. For a moment I wanted to smack him. Hard. _

_But hearing him call me baby stopped me from doing anything other than continuing to stare at the smirk on his face and wondering how I'd survived the last six months without seeing it. _

_I couldn't even be annoyed that he was making fun of me. I'd missed him too much to care. _

_All that mattered was that he was here. With me. _

_The only question was how. I had to know what this was. _

"_Well the only other explanation is that you're alive and that's…" I trailed off, suddenly unsure if it truly was out of the realm of possibility. Crazier things had happened after all. _

_But no. The Other Side was gone. He couldn't be here. _

_Why, then, did his fingers caressing my cheek feel so damn real? Exactly like they always had when he'd touched me in the past to calm me, reassure me, tell me he loved me without saying the words._

_I slowly turned my eyes back to him, searching for the answer, any answer that made sense. All I saw was love and patience and a bit of amusement as he watched me puzzle through the mystery of his miraculous return._

"…_Impossible." I finished in a shaky whisper, willing my mind to understand how Damon was here in this forest with me, looking at me like he'd missed me as much as I had him. Maybe more._

_He cocked his head to the side and simply smiled, never ceasing to run his thumb over my cheekbone, seeming content to just sit here with me while my brain fought to put two and two together._

_Tears streamed from my eyes before I could stop them and I gasped in surprise when he tucked my hair behind my hair._

_He was here. He was back._

"_You're here," I whispered so quietly I wasn't even sure I'd actually said it._

"_Yes," he said easily, still looking at me like he'd never seen anything so beautiful in all his life. _

"_What did you do Damon? How are you back?"_

_He laughed a little. "Ask your witchy bestie. She was the mastermind this time."_

_The breath literally blew out of me in a violent rush. "Bonnie's here too?" I asked in absolute shock. _

"_Of course. Couldn't leave Little Gilbert hanging now could she?" He smirked like he knew some grand secret about Bonnie and Jeremy that I was not privy too._

"_And you?" _

"_I promised I'd make it back to you didn't I?" His smile softened but he still waggled his eyebrows once._

_And I fucking shattered. _

_Everything I'd been feeling since he left, every sleepless night spent aching for his touch, his voice, his very presence crashed into me with the force of an atomic bomb. The pain and longing and tears and regret and hope and love - so much love - assaulted me all at once and I couldn't take it anymore. I didn't care if it turned out this was a dream or a trick of a completely wrecked mind. I refused to spend another second out of his arms._

_It had just been too long. _

_I flew forward at inhuman speed and crushed our lips together, and he didn't hesitate for even a moment, responding with the same need and love and relief so palpable it threatened to drag us both under._

_We wouldn't have noticed anyway. _

_Years could have passed before that kiss ended and we'd never have known. We were lost in another world, a world that consisted of only us and our love and the feel of our lips devouring every centimeter of each other we could reach. _

_And anything our lips couldn't find, our hands made up for. _

_I wouldn't have minded in the slightest if he'd simply taken me on the forest floor in that moment. My skin burned for him in ways I didn't know were possible, my lungs seeming to create their own oxygen to allow me the pleasure of kissing him as long as I wished without interruption._

_I'd never have stopped given the choice. I could kiss Damon until the end of time._

_The feel of him clouded my brain so much I may have even told him as much. _

_I didn't dare separate from him for fear he'd disappear the second I let him go. He seemed to feel the same way, clinging to me like I was a raft in an endless sea. _

_It wasn't until I felt a drop of water hit my cheek - one that wasn't part of the deluge pouring from my eyes - that I started to take notice of anything besides the gorgeous man in my arms._

_After a beat of pure silence, the sky opened up, one drop turning into hundreds as the universe unleashed its own passionate celebration of our reunion. In mere minutes we were drenched. _

_Still we didn't separate, our lips continuing to dance to the heavy tempo of the storm._

_Thunder boomed overhead, a flash of lightning illuminating the trees around us and suddenly, I was on my back, Damon pressed against me from head to toe, our lips never ceasing their lusty tango._

_The fingers of my left hand were locked in his hair, my right caressing the stubble on his jaw. His had managed to sneak under my waterlogged jacket and shirt and were gripping the skin of my back roughly. _

_I wouldn't have given a flying fuck if it turned out we were actually dead together. Because this had to be what heaven felt like. It was too delicious and familiar and beautiful to be anything else. _

_And I really wanted to tell him that. I wanted to tell him a lot of things. _

_How much I loved him. How much I'd missed him, needed him, ached for him since he'd been gone._

_How much I wished this was real. And how destroyed I would be if it wasn't._

_But it had to be. Nothing this incredible could ever be anything other than the real thing. _

_I just had to be sure. _

"_I missed you," I finally whispered breathlessly against his lips, pulling back to look into those fathomless cerulean eyes of his and fighting to catch my breath. _

_His chest was heaving, his eyes searing with simultaneous need and relief and a little frustration, like he couldn't decide if he wanted to stay where he was and re-memorize my entire face like I was doing with his or tear my clothes off and have his way with me until my screams could be heard above the roar of the wind._

_I was personally lobbying for door number two. _

_But he seemed to settle on taking a moment to appreciate that we were here, together again. So he leaned forward and rested his forehead against mine. _

"_I missed you more," he whispered back, nuzzling my nose with his. _

_I swear I melted into the puddle around us. I was no more tangible than water._

_I was just a fluid substance that seemed to bend entirely to the softest romantic murmurings of Damon Salvatore. His slightest touch or look had the power to unravel me at the cellular level._

_It was unreal. And yet so real, so normal, so Damon, I didn't even think to question it. _

_Because he was here with me again. And I'd never been more grateful for anything. Ever. _

"I love you." I mumbled into his skin, running my fingers slowly down either side of his back and shifting myself, somehow, even closer to him, my inner thighs resting on his hips.

I felt him smile against my shoulder, wrapping his arms a little tighter around my back. "I love you."

I sighed in contentment, pressing my lips into his neck and leaving them there.

"Welcome home Damon."


End file.
